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Nordic Foodtech VC has announced the first closing of its second fund at €40m, with the final target size for the fund set at €80m.

The firm, based in Finland and Denmark, invests in early-stage start-ups with innovative technologies that can contribute toward a healthy, resource-efficient and resilient food system.

Nordic Foodtech is collaborating with universities and research institutions, aiming to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and industrial applications. Its second fund is backed by institutional investors such as Tesi and Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company, and by food industry stakeholders including Valio Pension Fund and Heino Group.

The first fund successfully invested in 18 companies from the Nordics and Baltics, including Finnish Enifer and Kuva Space, Danish Chromologics and Evodia, Estonian Äio, and Swedish Melt&Marble and Ironic Biotech.

Portfolio companies are tackling significant challenges for the F&B industry, such as producing affordable protein ingredients, functional fats and oils, natural food colours and aroma compounds.

Innovative technologies include solutions to capture nutrients from waste waters and recycling waste streams into fertilisers, and hyperspectral imaging technologies to provide insights from fields and the environment from Earth’s orbit.

Lauri Reuter, partner at Nordic Foodtech VC, said: “We invest in planet-sized business opportunities in bite-sized chunks. With our whole team’s experience and expertise in investing in this sector, we are able to spot early on the start-ups that are solving tangible enough problems to generate good returns within a fund cycle.”

The fund will continue its work with academic organisations in the Nordics and Baltics, aiming to identify ideas, teams and technologies with potential to scale globally.

Nordic Foodtech will continue to lead the early seed and pre-seed rounds in these regions and co-invest in the rest of Europe, with ticket sizes ranging from a few hundred thousand euros to €2 million. The fund will also hold a reserve for significant follow-on investments.

With the first closing of the second fund at €40 million, the VC has doubled its total capital managed. The fundraising will continue toward the €80 million target for final closing.